March 31,  1906





RECORD   AND   GUIDE





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ESTABUSHED ^ tWR,CH Sl'-^ 1868.
Dev&TEB P ReJ^I. EsTWI , BUI LOIf/o ^acit'lTECTimE .HcfUSElIOLD DECORATlotf,
BUsii^ESS AfloThemes OFGEito\f.l Wterest.

PRICE   PER   YEAR    IN    ADVANCE    EIGHT   DOLLARS

Pablis/ied   eVerp   Salardag

Communications-should bo addressed to

C.   W.   SWEET.   14-ia  Vesey  Street.   New York

Telephone, Cortlandt 3157

"Eidn-ed at lhe Post Office at JVeif York, N. Y. as second-class matter."





earnings of most railroads have increased 50 jer cent., while
the shares are selling for a lower price, on the average, than
they were in 1901 and 1902.





Vol. LXXVIL





MARCH 31, 190e.





No. 1985





INDEX TO DEPARTI«ENTS.
Advertising Section,

Pago.                                               Pag*.

Cement   ....................xxv   Law..........................xi

Consulting Engineers   .......xviii   Lumber   .................xsvill

Clay  Products   ...............xxiv   Machinery   ...................iv

Contractors  and Builders   ......v  IMetal Work..................xx

Electrical   Interest    ..........viii   Quick   Job   Directory........xxiii

Fireproofing   ..................iii   Real   Estate.................xxiii

Granite   ....................xxvi   Roofera   &   Rooflng Materials., .x

Heating   ...................xx!   Stone  .....................xxvi

Iron   and   Steel................xix   Wood  Products   ............xxix

A SQUEEZE in money was looked for this weelv in Wall
Street, but it did not materialize. Easy money after the
first weelc in April now seems assured, and the hest banliing
opinion is that if «asy money does not come in April there
will be from ten to flfteen millions of gold from Prance to this
country. It is but awaiting the money rates to be established
here after the turn of the month.





THE STOCK r-IARKET this weelv bas acted very much in
the manner suggested and indicated in tliese columns.
The strike issue has been discounted and fuel for a big ad¬
vance in stocks has been heaping up during the past three
mouths. Only easy money is needed to touch it off, after which
the fire of speculation may be counted upon to spread well into
the summer, malting many new high records-before it burns out,
Reading and Union Pacific seem fair to be the bell-weathers in
the railroad list, with the metal stocks leading in the indus¬
trials. At no time during the entire boom since March, 1904,
have tlie low priced railroad stocks had an inning. In Waii
Street parlance they are overdue, and may have a whirl now.
If speculation nins into railroad stocks the low priced issues
will undoubtedly be the favorites with the commission houses,
because requiring less capital to carry and having more margin
for an advance. It is quite within the possibilities that the
Erie's, Wisconsin Central, Iowa Central and Toledo, St, Louis
and Western preferred aud common may show an advance on
the next movement of twenty points and still be relatively
cheaper than at the time when their previous high records
were made.





THB RATE BILL discussion will prove a sort of primer of
national education on railroad values, and the pending
legislation closes the booli and lifts railroads out of further
political discussion, stops the chronic attacks to which they
have hitherto been subjected in State legislatures, and also
postpones paralleling for a decade at least, or until capital
shall have had a chance to observe the worlving of railroads
under the new provisions of the law. It is by no means cer¬
tain that the law has any hardship in store for railroads that
is not more than offset by the abolition of free passes, the
stoppage of rebates and the cessation of clubbing the large
shippers through the medium of so-called terminal roads for
which was exacted an arbitrary percentage of the through
rate which often meant the entire profit in the business.
Adding to all this immunity from paralleling it is obvious that
railroad managers have a period of comparative peace ahead
of them, and so in turn have the stockholders and the stock
market.





SLOWLY but surely all these things will dawn upon bankers
and investors here and abroad, and, taken together with
the fact that no new capital issues have been made for five
years—the amount of stock per mile of road being small—
the next advance will find more players and fewer counters
than any preceding one, and higher prices than any hereto¬
fore attained may be expected. This may be predicated from
the fact that In the interval  since  1901 the gross and  net





THE LOCAL traction stocks begin to show undoubted signs
of re-awalteuing. Their action at present is consistent with
the handling of the Interborough stock after its birth. It
will be recalled that this security was allowed to get dull and it
sagged to 85, the Syndicate having paid 100 in cash for it.
Participants were in the depths of discouragement, and the
lower the price went the more the street was afraid of it, aa
if it was some slimy reptile or monster. Yet but a few weeks
ago it sold at thrice 85, and the new merger stock traded in
this week at 50 may make a similar record, as it is under the
same direction aud management. It may be trite to say that
history oft repeats itself, but certainly the scare of Inter¬
borough at its inception has been repeated in the merger stocks
during the past month. Why may not a similar advance be
repeated? Real estate interests in this city are good judges
of traction possibilities, and ought to be better judges of trac¬
tion values, other things being equal, than the ordinary Wail
Street speculator.





THE REVIVAL of interest and the increase iu values
which has been takin-" place in One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Street is the illustration_of a process which has
frequently occurred in the history of New York real estate.
Values on an important avenue or street, may, during the
early years of its real estate development, be increased
to a level not justified by substantial business reasons, and
a reaction may follow; but eventually the growth of the city
will justify even the most extravagant anticipations. So it has
been with Fifth Avenue; so it is with One Hundred and
Twenty-flfth Street; so it may well be with the Bowery. In
1890 and thereabouts prices on One Hundred and Twenty-flfth
Street were advanced to a very high level on the conviction
that this street would rival some of the broader streets down¬
town as a shopping and amusement centre; but while many
stores and places of amusement flourished in the street, it was
found subsequently that they were neither as numerous as was
anticipated, nor of such high grade, and a sharp reaction in
values succeeded. Of late, however, there has been a gradual
recovery, brought about chiefly by tlie building up of the upper
East Side, of Harlem and of the lower part of the Bronx, The
character of the business transacted in One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Street has not been raised to any considerable
extent, but its volume has considerably increased, and many
new enterprises have been started. Moreover, there is every
reason to anticipate a still further improvement of the same
kind. As Washington Heiglits becomes populated, the business
men of One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street have a still larger
area upon which to depend for trade, while the same statement
is even more true of the Pronx. It cannot be expected that this
trade will be concerned with a high quality of goods, because
the population of this whole neighborhood is composed of
comparatively poor people, who when they want to spend more
money than usual will take advantage of the improving means
of communication to travel down to the big stores on Sixth
Avenue, but there will be an ever larger number of prosperous
shops who sell cheap goods, and of vaudeville "stock" theatres.
It so happens that One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street is the
only broad cross-town tlioroughfare between Fifty-ninth Street
and the Harlem River which runs at an even grade from the
East to tbe Hudson River, and it is sure to get whatever gen¬
eral business that part of the city affords. It will probably even
be more convenient for the residents of the west side of the
Bronx than any centre of business which may be built upon
the east side of that borough.





T_-it;; marlted feature of the new development is the increase
of business structures—lofts, offices, factories, and com¬
bination buildings at the points of contact at the new ter¬
minals—not the building of dwellings, as was the case in
the "L" roads which first developed upper New York. In
western states the alternate section plan gave value to farms
and through farms to towns and cities. A government railroad
grant oi land provided that every alternate section should be
sold by the railroad, the intervening ones being for homesteads.
The line was built, land was sold by the railroads and hy the
government, and one complementing the other, there was a
boom. The plan of development here was much the same, A
car line, surface or elevated road was extended. The cost was a
draft on the future. Around the stations or on the lines resl^
dences  s[jraug up.    The tendency was steadily northward.    As